We theoretically investigate the piezo-optic effect of high-harmonic generation (HHG) in shear-strained semiconductors. By focusing on a typical semiconductor, GaAs, we show that there is optical activity, meaning different responses to right-handed and left-handed elliptically polarized electric fields. We also show that this optical activity is more pronounced for higher harmonics whose perturbative order exceeds the band-gap energy. These findings point to a useful pathway for strain engineering of nonlinear optics to control the reciprocity of HHG.
We present a cavity piezo-optomechanical system where microwave and optical degrees of freedom are coupled through an ultra-high frequency mechanical resonator. By utilizing the coherence among the three interacting modes, we demonstrate optical amplification, coherent absorption and a more general asymmetric Fano resonance. The strong piezoelectric drive further allows access to the large-amplitude-induced optomechanical nonlinearity, with which optical transparency at higher harmonics through multi-phonon scattering is demonstrated.
The interaction of optical and mechanical modes in nanoscale optomechanical systems has been widely studied for applications ranging from sensing to quantum information science. Here, we develop a platform for cavity optomechanical circuits in which localized and interacting 1550 nm photons and 2.4 GHz phonons are combined with photonic and phononic waveguides. Working in GaAs facilitates manipulation of the localized mechanical mode either with a radio frequency field through the piezo-electric effect, or optically through the strong photoelastic effect. We use this to demonstrate a novel aco…
We have implemented highly stable and tunable frequency references using optical high finesse cavities which incorporate a piezo actuator. As piezo material we used ceramic PZT, crystalline quartz, or PZN-PT single crystals. Lasers locked to these cavities show a relative frequency stability better than 1 x 10^{-14}, which is most likely not limited by the piezo actuators. The piezo cavities can be electrically tuned over more than one free spectral range (> 1.5 GHz) with only a minor decrease in frequency stability. Furthermore, we present a novel cavity design, where the piezo actuator is pr…
Acoustic wave devices provide a promising chip-scale platform for efficiently coupling radio frequency (RF) and optical fields. Here, we use an integrated piezo-optomechanical circuit platform that exploits both the piezoelectric and photoelastic coupling mechanisms to link 2.4 GHz RF waves to 194 THz (1550 nm) optical waves, through coupling to propagating and localized 2.4 GHz acoustic waves. We demonstrate acousto-optic modulation, resonant in both the optical and mechanical domains, in which waveforms encoded on the RF carrier are mapped to the optical field. We also show opto-acoustic mod…
Hybrid quantum systems are essential for the realization of distributed quantum networks. In particular, piezo-mechanics operating at typical superconducting qubit frequencies features low thermal excitations, and offers an appealing platform to bridge superconducting quantum processors and optical telecommunication channels. However, integrating superconducting and optomechanical elements at cryogenic temperatures with sufficiently strong interactions remains a tremendous challenge. Here, we report an integrated superconducting cavity piezo-optomechanical platform where 10-GHz phonons are res…
We present a new type of tunable mirror with sharply-featured freeform displacement profiles, large displacements of several 100μm and high operating frequencies close to the kHz range at 15mm diameter. The actuation principle is based on a recently explored "topological" displacement mode of piezo sheets. The prototypes presented here include a rotationally symmetric axicon, a hyperbolic sech-icon and a non-symmetric pyram-icon and are scalable to smaller dimensions. The fabrication process is economic and cleanroom-free, and the optical quality is sufficient to demonstrate the diffraction pa…
Piezoelectric optomechanical platforms represent one of the most promising routes towards achieving quantum transduction of photons between the microwave and optical frequency domains. However, there are significant challenges to achieving near-unity transduction efficiency. We discuss such factors in the context of the two main approaches being pursued for high efficiency transduction. The first approach uses one-dimensional nanobeam optomechanical crystals excited by interdigitated transducers, and is characterized by large single-photon optomechanical coupling strength, limited intracavity …
Efficient interconversion of both classical and quantum information between microwave and optical frequency is an important engineering challenge. The optomechanical approach with gigahertz-frequency mechanical devices has the potential to be extremely efficient due to the large optomechanical response of common materials, and the ability to localize mechanical energy into a micron-scale volume. However, existing demonstrations suffer from some combination of low optical quality factor, low electrical-to-mechanical transduction efficiency, and low optomechanical interaction rate. Here we demon…
We propose theory for reversible quantum transducer connecting superconducting qubits and optical photons using acoustic waves in piezoelectrics. The proposed device consists of integrated acousto-optic resonator that utilizes stimulated Brillouin scattering for phonon-photon conversion, and piezoelectric effect for coupling of phonons to qubits. We evaluate the phonon-photon coupling rate, and show that the required power of optical pump as well as the other device parameters providing full and faithful quantum conversion are feasible for implementation with the state of the art integrated ac…
Bulk acoustic resonators support robust, long-lived mechanical modes, capable of coupling to various quantum systems. In separate works, such devices have achieved strong coupling to both superconducting qubits, via piezoelectricity, and optical cavities, via Brillouin interactions. In this work, we present a novel hybrid microwave/optical platform capable of coupling to bulk acoustic waves through cavity-enhanced piezoelectric and photoelastic interactions. The modular, tunable system achieves fully resonant and well-mode-matched interactions between a 3D microwave cavity, a high-frequency bu…
Interfacing electronics with optical fiber networks is key to the long-distance transfer of classical and quantum information. Piezo-optomechanical transducers enable such interfaces by using GHz-frequency acoustic vibrations as mediators for converting microwave photons to optical photons via the combination of optomechanical and piezoelectric interactions. However, despite successful demonstrations, efficient piezo-optomechanical transduction remains out of reach due to the challenges associated with hybrid material integration and increased loss from piezoelectric materials when operating i…
Demonstrating a device that efficiently connects light, motion, and microwaves is an outstanding challenge in classical and quantum photonics. We make significant progress in this direction by demonstrating a photonic crystal resonator on thin-film lithium niobate (LN) that simultaneously supports high-$Q$ optical and mechanical modes, and where the mechanical modes are coupled piezoelectrically to microwaves. For optomechanical coupling, we leverage the photoelastic effect in LN by optimizing the device parameters to realize coupling rates $g_0/2π\approx 120~\textrm{kHz}$. An optomechanical c…
Piezoelectric optomechanical platforms present one of the most promising routes towards efficient transduction of signals from the microwave to the optical frequency domains. New device architectures need to be developed in order to achieve the stringent requirements for building efficient quantum transducers. In this work, we utilize the mechanical supermode principle to improve the overall microwave to optical transduction efficiency, by fabricating Lamb wave resonators that are hybridized with the mechanical breathing modes of a rib waveguide in a suspended gallium arsenide (GaAs) photonic …
IR induced piezo optic effect (POE) in PbTe:Ca crystals was found under the influence of nanosecond pulse CO2 laser with a wavelength of 10.6 micro meters. It was shown that addition of Ca leads to an increase of the POE tensor coefficient. This indicates the appearance of enhanced IR induced static dipole moments caused predominately by Ca impurities. Simultaneously, the variations in time kinetics for the POE in nanosecond time regime were explored. A substantial role of electron phonon subsystem in the observed POE effect was demonstrated. The studies were done both for diagonal as well as …
Integrated photonic circuits are key components for photonic quantum technologies and for the implementation of chip-based quantum devices. Future applications demand flexible architectures to overcome common limitations of many current devices, for instance the lack of tuneabilty or built-in quantum light sources. Here, we report on a dynamically reconfigurable integrated photonic circuit comprising integrated quantum dots (QDs), a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducers directly fabricated on a monolithic semiconductor platform. We demonstrate on-chip si…
Monolithic Integration of Piezo-Optomechanical Photonics and CMOS Electronics
The MITRE Corporation（MITRE公司）；Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校电气、计算机和能源工程学院）；Sandia National Laboratories（桑迪亚国家实验室）；Wyant College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona（亚利桑那大学怀恩特光学科学学院）；Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院电子研究实验室）
We report the design and characterization of an optical shutter based on a piezoelectric cantilever. Compared to conventional electro-magnetic shutters, the device is intrinsically low power and acoustically quiet. The cantilever position is controlled by a high-voltage op-amp circuit for easy tuning of the range of travel, and mechanical slew rate, which enables a factor of 30 reduction in mechanical noise compared to a rapidly switched device. We achieve shuttering rise and fall times of 11 $μ$s, corresponding to mechanical slew rates of 1.3 $\textrm{ ms}^{-1}$, with an timing jitter of less…
